Just because you got rid of cable doesn’t mean that you don’t have to go without baseball for the entire season. Here are some ways that you can watch MLB games live without paying for cable.
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Cutting the cord puts a lot of strain on sports fans in general, since most games are aired on cable networks, with very few airing on channels you can pick up with an antenna for free. Because of that, you still see a lot of sports fans paying for cable just to watch games. When it comes to baseball, though, you don’t have to succumb to the cable providers. Granted, some methods require you to pay a one-time fee of some sort, but it’s way less than what you would probably be paying for cable.
MLB.TV Is the Gold Standard
If you’re a die-hard baseball fan and you want to watch all the games you possibly can, MLB.TV is the streaming service to use.
It costs $116 for the whole season, which sounds like a lot, but you’d probably pay that much every month for cable. You can also pay a little less if you’re only interested in your favorite team’s games. That package costs $90 for the season.
However, a huge caveat with MLB.TV is that “in-market” games are blacked out. This means that if you live anywhere near your home team’s ballpark, you won’t be able to watch the games on MLB.TV—only “out-of-market” games are available for you to stream. This is great for those whose favorite team is located across the country, but if you live in Chicago and want to watch the Cubbies play, you’re out of luck (although you can get around these restrictions by using a VPN on the machine you’re watching from).
The best thing about MLB.TV, though, is that it supports nearly every device, including iOS, Android, PlayStation, Xbox, Roku, Apple TV, and more.
Use Various Network Streaming Apps
If you don’t want to pay for MLB.TV or want to find another way to watch your home team play, you can try other streaming apps that are provided by the big networks.
The NBC Sports app, for instance, streams most White Sox games through the CSN Chicago network, and even if you live close by, you can watch it without blackouts.
There are other apps that you can check out that sometimes stream MLB games, like WatchESPN, FOX Sports Go, and CBS Sports, but they might be few and far between.
The caveat with these apps is that you need to log in using your cable subscription credentials, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of cord cutting. However, if you have a family member or a close friend who has cable, they might be nice enough to give you their info.
Use an Antenna as a Last Resort
Depending on where you live, you might be able to receive some channels that air all the games of your home team. However, most of the time, you’ll only be able to pull in the local major networks, which don’t air baseball games all too often.
If I recall over the past couple of years, only around 8-10 White Sox games were aired locally out of the 162 games played. Again, though, if you live in the city where your home team plays, there could be a channel that airs all 162 games throughout the season—WGN is one example for Chicago fans, so be sure to check if there’s a channel in your area that does this.
